Some people's idea of hell.

When I thought about this, I immediately drew a parallel in my gaming life too. You know how it is, you get a new game and you have to learn the button presses, combinations, moves, strategies and in a lot of cases the foibles of the game mechanic itself. It’s only after climbing that learning curve that you actually start to enjoy the experience.

Of course it’s the goal of game designers to make sure that the curve is as short and/or shallow as possible so as to draw you in and speed up that path to enjoyment so that their product is recommended to friends and the next release goes onto the ‘must have’ list. But I remember my first hour in Assassins Creed: Revelations un-learning what I thought I’d remembered from the previous titles and learning the new button combos to make Ezio and Altair do their stuff. I was the in-game equivilent of the person standing in the middle of the concourse looking at all of the signs in a state of mild panic because they just aren’t positive that they’re in the right place!

I recently switched from auto to manual gear shifting in Forza 4; again a new learning experience which saw me sliding off at more than a few corners but one which was ultimately wholly gratifying as it brought a new level to my driving enjoyment.

Of course it’s easy to draw grand parallels, but here’s what I’ll be remembering: the more I play, the more I’ll enjoy playing, and frankly that’s all I need!

TORA organises various online motorsport races and championships; the majority of which utilise the Xbox 360 platform and Forza Motorsport 4. Their online championships are inspired by real world motorsport series, such as the British Touring Car Championship, Le Mans Series and British GT. These TORA championships are given the same degree of seriousness as their real life counterparts, which is evident in their recognition as the first virtual racing club to be recognized by a real world motorsport organization: the MSA (Motorsports Association UK)

For over four years now TORA has been the home of British online racing, attracting a wide range of people, from the most dedicated online racer to the casual armchair motorsport fan. TORA has some of the finest Forza Motorsport players in the world racing in its series just now, but they are also very welcoming to anybody who is just starting out their online racing experience. With a friendly and helpful community behind the on-track action it is easy to become involved within TORA and to be treated with the same respect as their long standing members. Some of the members of the community don’t even race online, but they visit TORA to talk about their motorsport and video game hobbies with many like-minded  individuals.

So you’re ready to race, you think? Well, to make your Forza world complete, Ready Up and TORA have teamed up with our good friends at XBox to bring you an amazing competition with some fantastic prizes including t-shirts, Wireless Speed Wheels and a whole bunch of Forza merchandise and topped off with an amazing Forza 4 race jacket. Trust me, you need this in your life!

The rules are simple, follow @readyup and @TheReal_TORA and complete the form below. That’s it, you could be the lucky recipient of probably the most desirable piece of raceware around! We have divided the prizes into three jamed packages.

1st Prize:
Forza 4 Jacket (L)
Copy of Forza 4
360 Wireless Speed Wheel
Forza Car Cleaning Kit
Plus a Forza Air freshener, keyring, stress ball.

2nd Prize
Forza 4 T-Shirt (M)
360 Wireless Speed Wheel
Plus a Forza Air freshener, keyring, stress ball.

3rd Prize:
Forza Air freshener, keyring, stress ball.

In addition TORA will be giving away another 360 Wireless Speed Wheel as well as T-Shirts and other goodies throughout their current race season so get involved there for even more chances to win.

[contact-form]

It’s a short and relatively simple question, but here’s the thing… how do you review an MMO? The nature of the beast is that it takes FOREVER to play through and everyone’s experience will be different. The reality is that you have to boil the experience down to the mechanics and that produces a rather flat and un-engaging bit of prose.

So I, of course, offered my battered carcass up for the job of diving into APB: Reloaded to see what this reboot has to offer the world — sucker for punishment that’s me!

The first thing about APB:R is that it’s free, yes not a shekel do you have to pay to immerse yourself in the world of San Paro. This is a good thing, you may remember that the original APB sank miserably along with Realtime Worlds a while ago after a lot of people paid a considerable amount of cash for it. That was a bad thing, this is better. At least I thought it was, but I’ll get to that.

APB:R is a PC game, by that I mean there’s only a PC client available for it at the moment. I have a slightly quirky technical environment which I’ll share if you ask nicely enough, but it’s safe to say that with a little tweaking (hard drive space and graphics RAM) I got the client installed, set up my account and got to work on customising my character. There is a lot of flexibility in this part and you’ll probably spend a good hour or so getting the features ‘just right’ as I did. I still wasn’t happy with the result, it may be my environment (as I mentioned… quirky) but the mouse-based controls for changing the features were difficult to use and I eventually had to settle for something I wasn’t happy with otherwise this missive would finish about here!

What do you mean — "Typical boy's screenshot choice"?

Then we descend into the chaos that is the city of San Paro, I chose the path of righteousness and was an Enforcer, in other words an official vigilante let loose onto the streets with the minimum of training and a large gun, out to kill the bad guys. This all sounds great in theory but the realities are that there’s no appreciable difference in the gameplay once this choice as been made. I suppose you could commit to the back stories of each of your contacts, but understanding where Violet Prentice came from and why she does what she does isn’t really what a shooter is about is it?! And that’s only the start of where things fall apart.

You see for all the good that GamersFirst have done with this — and there are some real and significant improvements over the original APB for sure — there simply isn’t enough meat to engage me here.

1. Driving – it’s a key element and is actually pretty good in terms of the ways the different vehicles handle. I particularly like the way additional passengers in a vehicle can lean out of the windows and shoot, this adds a nice dimension to things and I hope that this element is developed further.
2. It’s free — as I mentioned this is good, but the model is to nag players into paying for the premium subscription with constant “Here’s what you could have won” reminders. I understand this, but it’s still annoying.
3. Dickhead kids spamming abuse – I like a good sweary moment, but I don’t feel the need to type it out for the world to read… why be a public a-hole kids?
4. Why am I an Enforcer? — or anything at all. The story tells me I felt some kind of civic duty, but this actually places nothing more than a burden upon you in terms of the gameplay as if you kill a bystander, say through hitting someone as they walk in front of your SPEEDING CAR, then you are penalised through loss of reward at the end of whatever mission you’re on.
5. I don’t want to play with others all of the time — it’s true, sometimes I like to do things on my own, but APB:R has no support for this. Leave ‘Ready’ mode and you can certainly wander the streets but there’s nothing you can actually do. Perhaps in the future you’ll be able to lend a hand to other enforcers on the job, maybe NPC Enforcers and Crims will provide ad-hoc engagements which you can take or leave, maybe but not today.
6. Dying, lots — in this world how is death and re-spawning explained? In Crackdown you’re a clone and that makes sense, here though the mechanics are just too jarring.
7. Camping – this is not fun. On the last mission I played I died no less than eight times before the clock ran out, simply because the bad guys had found a nice cubby-hole from which they could shoot away with impunity. I cried “foul” and “not fair” at this point and quit the game.

And I think it’s that last point which sums APB:R up for me. On every occasion I quit the game, it wasn’t because I had to tear myself away and do something else — eating or sleeping for example — it was because I got frustrated or even bored with what was happening.

Good guy - Bad guy. Choose your poison.

I’m sure there are some groups of friends out there who all dive into the game together, play missions as a cohesive team and derive some decent amount of satisfaction from it. But that isn’t me and perhaps that’s the point and I know it’s the reason this is a blog post rather than a review. I can’t score APB:R out of ten because it’d get a four and that would probably be unfair because there ARE people logged in, playing and enjoying it.

My recommendation then is this: if you are part of a group of friends who like third person shooters and who can work solidly as a team you’ll probably get on okay with APB:Reloaded. If you aren’t then leave it alone. Trust me you aren’t missing out on anything!

Why then do I STILL have to put up with the nonsense responses I get to my perfectly reasonable reply of “I’d like XXX, please, for the Xbox. Thanks”

“Is that a game?”

“Yes, yes it is. It’s actually quite good, but you’d probably have had to played through the first one to really understand the character.”

“Oh, a game. Wouldn’t you like something more grown up and practical?”

Socks are fine.

At this point either the top of my head pops off, or I simply sigh and say that actually, socks would be good.

How much time do we have to spend, how much energy do we have to commit to getting people to understand that gaming is not a preserve for children, the socially retarded or slightly overweight IT guys with a pony-tail and a collection of black T-shirts. OK those groups DO play, but I’m not them, and I suspect neither are you!

What is it with our pastime of choice which still evokes the ‘oh you poor dear’ attitude from so many in the general population? If I’d asked for a DVD, or a book that’d have been fine, despite the fact that one is a totally passive experience and the other is even more socially excluding than playing a game. Watch someone play Forza, or Mass Effect or Assassin’s Creed and you can see what’s going on and even interact. Watch someone read a book ever? It’s no fun!

Even the more interactive and inclusive titles such as those using Kinect or Move or on the Wii are still seen as a bit frivolous and somewhat a waste of time. It’s a bloody outrage!

But at least those people, the ones above with the socks and stuff, at least those folks are honest in their ignorance of the joy of our world and for that they can be somewhat forgiven. Ignorance is after all a temporary condition easily cured through the application of knowledge and experience. Far worse than those are the fakers. You know the ones. Those time-wasting fardles who ask that most heinous of leading questions “So what’s this all about then?”

Futile explanation.

I hate those people because they leave you with only two choices, you can either be blunt — ”Well, I could tell you but firstly you wouldn’t understand and secondly you don’t actually care!”, or you can tread that sorrowed path and explain the depth of the characters, the level of detail in the physics, the overall conceit of the game in all its glory and you know, you just KNOW that at the end of it all you’ll get a platitude along the lines of “Well I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, I don’t really understand these X-Station things”.

Bang 45 minutes of your life gone, right there. And that’s a decent race, a level or two, some discovery or at least a bit of building which simply didn’t get done because of some mealy-mouthed relative who thinks that talking about something is the same as understanding it. GAH!

My solution is simple: I don’t ask for games any more; I just go and buy them. Even in the week before Christmas, if I see a game I want I buy it. It’s just easier that way. Of course as a result of this I get a lot of socks for Christmas, but you can never have too many socks really!

After the update was done, I was introduced to Jake, our protagonist in this caper and saw that he’s got himself into a bit of bother with some other fellows. This is where we first learn of the QTEs in The Run and how they are going to fit into the narrative. I wasn’t a fan. Really, don’t try to engage me in some faux interactivity, just give me a decent cut scene, it’s OK!

Anyway, once we find out that Jakey-boy owes some nasties a bit of cash, we’re introduced to Sam, a nice girl with a few spare dollars —  in fact 250,000 of them which she’s willing to use to help Jake out by entering him into a race across America. The prize is $25million which she’s happy to split with him — he’ll get 10%. Nice. I’d love to give you some more story, to really get you involved with Jake, Sam the bad guys and the other racers, but I can’t because I don’t know any more. You simply don’t find out, which is a shame. There could be a good solid story here, but it feels more like an excuse than a reason.

Fluff over with we get to choose our first car and start ‘The Run’. I went simple with the BMW M3 and got settled in to laying down some miles and putting in some time. Here’s what I’ve learned:

As soon as you can, do the stage challenges. These are unlocked at the end of each stage and provide you with the now obligatory XP to get more skills and new cars for your garage if you meet the requirements for the challenge series. Each challenge uses a different type of car and you get to change the look in terms of body style and colour, but it doesn’t remember these choices which is a little annoying when you get the same car again. Also, don’t expect to get Golds on your first run through, because you won’t. You might get the odd one but you really don’t have the skills yet and those will come later. Now, thematically, the Challenges don’t really fit with the storyline but I’m willing to give The Run a break on that score.

But the meat of it all has to be ‘The Run’ itself; or at least it should be. Before I get into why I have an issue. I want to share something with you.

When a game gets reviewed, it’s usually done in pretty short order due to publishing deadlines, availability and other things and typically the game isn’t played through to conclusion before the review gets written. This is OK, after all if you’ve got 50% of the way through a game, you’ve a pretty good idea about how it works, what the engine’s doing, how well it’s written in terms of story, etc. It’s reasonable.

I’ve finished Need for Speed: The Run. Complete. Done. Re-boxed and put back on the shelf. Is this because I found The Run so engrossing, so brilliant, so addictive that I stayed up through the night and simply couldn’t stop? Well no. It’s because The Run is short. Very short!

Here are some numbers: the race from San Fransisco to New York is a little over 2200 miles long. My Run time was two hours 22 minutes at an average speed of about 130mph. That’s a total raced mileage of 300 miles. So out of 2200 I got to race 300. In percentage terms that’s not very much. But was it a good 300 miles?

NFS: The Run uses the Frostbite 2 engine and, as a result, has some simply stunning graphics. Of all of the scenery on offer I enjoyed both the look and the experience of The Rockies. This was also the best set of roads I drove on in terms of the ‘feel’ of the cars coming back through the wheel from the snow and ice. The handling was pretty decent throughout the game: there were the occasional ‘FFS’ moments where an impact simply should not have taken place but I managed to get over those.

Being behind the wheel is good, but the racing itself is arcade styled to an extreme level. In fact the dynamics of the races was the first thing which put doubts in my mind about the game. The differences in speed between the cars, in front or in chase, has been designed to keep the racing close, but it’s so poorly done that it’s just stupid. If I pass someone and push them in front of a truck I should be reasonably entitled to believe that if I keep the hammer down, I’ve got it sewn up. No, they seem to be able to recover and catch me up at warp speed but not take any significant sort of lead.

Each stage of The Run is split up into races where you either have to catch and pass a number of competitors, pass and stay in front, or race through a set of checkpoints to make up time. The above-mentioned speed ratios keep these close (sometimes frustratingly so) and you get five checkpoint ‘resets’ which are used if you fall too far behind, are too slow, drop of the side of the mountain or decide that you want to try again. Initially, you’d think that this is a good thing but the reality is that the these are just a pain. If I’m rubbish, I’ll finish last or fail to overtake the right number or whatever and I’ll have to do it again. I don’t want to be taken back to a point where I was just a bit less rubbish!

Another thing which is jarring is the police chases which happen in some of the races. They too have ‘magic’ cars which can catch up in seconds but my real issue is that there’s no follow through at the end of the races. I wanted to carry on, to lose my uniformed pursuers after passing through the red flares in the same way as I have in the past.

I said at the start of this that I was excited about The Run. Now I’m feeling a little let down. This is an arcade racer on rails with the end pre-determined and subject to only the slightest of variations in terms of your input as a driver. You’ll either succeed within some pretty narrow margins or fail and have to try again. The story underpinning The Run has no depth at all and really should have. I want to know what Jake did that caused the Mob to want to crush him in a car crusher, shoot at him from a helicopter and do everything they can to try and kill him. I’d also like to know more about the other drivers; at least more than we get in five or six canned pieces displayed during the too-long loading screens.

The final ‘race’ — see I did finish it! — is THE MOST RUBBISH piece of gaming I think I’ve played and basically encapsulates everything which is bad in the game. No spoilers, but this is not a race, its a glorified set of QTAs set over seven miles through the streets of New York. A race you can’t control and an outcome which was bitterly disappointing.

The Run seems like it’s been completed but not actually finished. The concept is good, the technology is good but the execution is sorely lacking. Perhaps this should have been a Christmas 2012 release with the time spent actually delivering some proper content.

Installation being complete, updates to PS3 done and wand charged up I was ready to go. Now, as I’d agreed to take on the review our Editor-in-Chief, the big cheese, the Grand Pooh-bah, the boss… Dan, sent me down a few other promo titles which use Move and as I went through them I came to the conclusion that these words here, the ones you’re reading, were actually better spent on the experience rather than walking you through games and how they work in my usual slightly too-technical yet oddly gushing way!

So here I am, my arm is aching, there’s sweat running down my brow and I’m in dire need of a couple of beers and what do I have to show for it? Well frankly not very much and here’s why I feel this way:

Mind Benders

Move Mind Benders.

A collection of three games on one disk:  Tumble, Lemmings and Echocrome ii.

Tumble seems like nothing more than a technical demo of Move, as all you really do is stack blocks on top of each other in interesting and challenging ways. The engagement factor for me was zero once I’d mastered that twisting my wrist made the block twist too! Yeah, not a huge learning curve there.

Lemmings was frankly a disappointment. I loved Lemmings on the PC and I’ve played a few variations since, but the Move controls felt clunky and lashed on and the enjoyment was far less than it should have been for this title. I’m pretty sure that most of you with a PS3 will also own a PC or Mac of some description. If you want to play Lemmings, get a copy for those instead, use a mouse and have LOTS more fun.

EchoChrome ii is the best out of this bunch with the use of the wand as a light source being well rendered and the controls nicely fine. It’s just the rest of it that feels clunky using the wand to control menus and sliders, etc. It’ good, but would I spend the thick end of £60 for hardware to play it? Well, OK, strictly speaking I did, but the reality is that, no you wouldn’t.

Next disk!

Medieval Moves

Medieval Moves.

I enjoyed playing this one, it gave me the above-mentioned sore arm and perspiration but it was fun. But a couple of times as I played through the opening levels I found myself thinking who is this for? See, the graphics are nice, friendly and cartoony — we are dealing with a boy who’s been turned into a skeleton and is guided by the ghost of his long dead ancestor here — so the kids will like the look of the thing, but the gameplay itself can involve quite a lot of control switching and the use of the various tools / weapons at your disposal is, in part, reliant upon the position of the Move when you press the relevant button. I got lost on a couple of occasions and sometimes the right bit of kit simply wouldn’t appear for me. Perhaps my calibration was out, perhaps I’d moved too close to the camera, perhaps… but that’s my point: kids don’t care about those things. If it’s too hard or doesn’t work they’ll get bored and move on. The audience then for this is perhaps a little mixed and therefore lost.  BUT, the Move did seem to do what it was designed for and this game took advantage of the design well. I particularly liked the idea of hiding the glowing end of the Move from the camera while pressing the ‘T’ button to light a stick of dynamite, it did feel like I was protecting a flame of some sort. This is a title you’d consider for purchase for an older young’un who’s happy to learn the nuances of the controls, but again not one you’d actually buy the hardware for in my opinion.

Next disk!

Carnival Island

Carnival Island.

Now this one really is for the kids or those who don’t mind being a kid for a little while. And this is really where I felt the Move was working best for me. Odd isn’t it that the simple things seem to make the biggest impact? Anime-type graphics will have the young-stars hooked in from the start and the characters, especially the big Panda, are immediately endearing and accessible. The controls using the Move are intuitive — make sure you’ve firmly attached the wrist strap by the way! — and the rewards you get are visual and fun. There are challenges which need to be met, but the simple effort of playing the game a couple of times would enable most kids to move through the various games with ease and enjoyment.

Is this what the PS3 is for, though, let alone a PS3 with additional peripherals?

So I reached a point in my maundering when I asked myself “who’d buy Move” and here’s the conclusion I’ve reached:

• You’re a gamer who likes solid HD games content and puts a reasonable amount of time into them.
• You’ve chosen the PS3 as your platform of choice. It seemed the best deal at the time and it’s a decent BluRay player too, plus all of your mates with 360s have had them fail at some point!
• You have the aforementioned PS3 in the living room, so your other half is cool with you gaming, or you’ve got a proper ‘den’ with enough space to jump around in.
• You’ve got kids. At least one, but more than likely a couple with 2-3 years in between.
• You’ve got a PS-Eye. Probably to put your face onto a character in a shooter

Then and, in my opinion, only then is it worth getting a Move. You’ll enjoy the titles that transport you to being a kid again with your kids and the titles which you, your other half and some mates can play when the kids are in bed or you’ve shipped them off to a grandparent/uncle/aunt.

There’s only one other category of gamer who will buy a Move and that’s me. I acquire tech hardware like it’s some sort of compulsion and will do so on the thinnest and most tenuous of reasoning. Like reviewing a game which isn’t that good but I’m getting a promo copy of for free. See? Thin.

When I first got hands on a Move it was at a PR preview of a Golf game. I liked that it was more accurate than the Wiimote and felt ‘right’ for the game. Then I played a few games with Kinect and I wondered what Sony was hoping to do. Whatever it was, I don’t think it worked. My Move is going into the box labelled “PS3 stuff” and I might drag it out if I have another game to review which uses it, but I don’t have kids, so apart from reviews I don’t have any other reason to use it.

The concept is this: you are in charge of an anthill and have to combine the protection of it and its inhabitants with the gathering of food items. The more food you have, the more ants of differing types you can have the queen spawn and the better you can do. It’s about increasing returns and it’s actually more fun than I’ve managed to make it sound here!

The enemies are varied and range from the passive Ladybird beetles who just want to steal your food through to nasty little bugs who will kill off your units as soon as look at them with big pincers, poison spit and other assorted insectile nastiness. The trails in question are pheromone lines which you draw to guide your workers and soldiers to differing areas of your little piece of land. So say for example there’s a great big dead beetle, that’s a lot of food right there. You draw a line out to it from the anthill with your finger, select the worker type, and off they’ll trundle to pick up the spoils then head on back. You’ll probably want to set up a defensive perimeter around the Anthill itself, so draw another line and select the Soldier type and off they’ll go on patrol.

The lead-in to the game introduces you to the various types through some happily anthropomorphic characters such as Mike McMinion and General Hardass who show you the basics but you’re fairly quickly into trying to maximise your food gathering and minimising your losses. The overall aim of each level in the game is to gather food and you get stars awarded for specific targets reached. These stars can then be spent upgrading your unit types, which in turn makes the later levels easier to complete. It all makes sense really.

But here’s the thing: I was challenged by the concept and I wanted to ‘win’ as much as possible, to get the maximum stars for each level, but when I had to switch off the iPad and get on with something, I felt no hesitation and no sense of loss. I’m also not rushing back to pick it up again.

Perhaps this is the point of ‘casual’ gaming and maybe that’s the trick here, I’m just a little intense to be casual, or maybe it’s just that once I’d seen and used the mechanic I wasn’t really bothered, then again maybe it’s just that I hate ants!

During the course of that research and conversations I came into contact with The Online Racing Association, or TORA for short. They have been running various championship series over the years for players on Forza, F1 GP and other platforms. We struck up a conversation about what they’d been doing and what they planned to do and I felt that they deserved to be brought to you, my dear readers, so you can learn more too.

I do driving games a lot for Ready Up, you might have noticed over the weeks and months (dear god it’s now years!) that when it comes to driving games it’s usually my chops you’ll see up there at the top of the page. But the guys running TORA are in another league when it comes to ‘doing’ driving games. They REALLY know how games work and, a lot of times don’t work, when it comes to online play. But rather than interpret what they do, I thought I’d give them the chance to do it themselves so Duncan and Richard from TORA agreed to meet up and have a chat and this is what came out of it.

Ready Up: Thanks for coming along and having a chat. First things first, who are you and what’s TORA all about?

“I’m Richard Millard  and I’m the Community Manager for TORA, so I look after the forums and that kind of thing.”

“I’m Duncan Ray, I’m the Club Secretary and look after the administrative bits and pieces and make sure everyone is doing what they’re supposed to.”

So where did TORA come from?

“It came from Matt – who ‘owns’ TORA – wanting to replicate the GT series online 4 or 5 years ago. He created the same kind of cars with matching PI (performance indication) but there was a mismatch between cars and some cars would shoot off because they had the acceleration but there was no way to limit horsepower.”

“The touring car series we run now, we’re able to provide limits on weight, horsepower and that kind of thing so we’ve got the cars much more balanced but with more variety.”

“With Forza 4 we’re looking at replicating the GT championship but without some of the constraints we see in the real world. In the real series there are only about 8 makes of cars which race, in our championship there aren’t any real limits to the makes we can have.”

“The other thing is the generally negative experience of playing online. You go into a lobby, any lobby, get into a race and someone will run straight into the back of you, use you as a brake into the first corner. Or you get the ‘you’re not very fast why are you here?’ kind of attitude and it’s that which we wanted to get away from. TORA is about a bunch of guys who want to race, who want to race cleanly and who want to enjoy it and learn as they do.”

“It’s about clean, fun racing and that’s it.”

Close racing, clean racing.

Rules in TORA – do they match real racing series, is it easy to manage this in game?

“It depends on the game, we use Forza because there’s such a great amount of customisation available. We used Shift 2 a couple of months ago, but it really didn’t work for us because the lobby system was effectively broken. We were impressed with the game, but it didn’t support running a series because of the lack of customisation in the online side of things and the limitations it had in terms of qualification – we were using time-trials, because there’s no real ‘qualification’ option but there was no consistency in that side of things, at some tracks it’d be 50 minutes, at others it’d be 20 and we had no control over that at all. It’s a shame really.”

Do you have any ‘real’ racers in TORA?

“It’s really cool actually, we have this guy Ashley Sutton, who raced in Formula V last year and in the Fiesta championship. He’s unbelievable quick online but he’s good to have in the championship as he brings a lot of professionalism and is sort of aspirational for the other drivers. But it works the other way round too, we’ve a guy in the States who’s used the online play to learn how to race and he’s then gone on to real races at kart tracks already knowing how to take lines and that kind of stuff. It shows how close sim-racing is to the real thing! Look at what happened with Gran Tourismo, those guys were fast in the game and they’re fast on a real world track too.”

Cars need to look good too!

Is it just all about racing though?

“The thing about Forza is that it’s more than just picking a car and racing, it’s about building the cars, tuning them, creating liveries. There are teams out there building communities and their drivers are saying “I race for this team” and they’re proud of that. So it’s really beyond just racing. ”

“As part of TORA we have guys who are really good at painting, we have guys who really understand the physics and we’ve got people actually learning about engineering because of the game and making the cars faster… it’s really cool!”

So how many of you are there, running the organisation?

“There are about 10 of us involved. Five run the top level stuff, we call them admins and we have the staff guys who run the individual series. It’s great because they really ‘own’ those things and we take care of the forums, the rules and that kind of stuff. Matt sits in overall charge and provides the direction for TORA, he really looks at where we could be taking the club and working with the admins and the community to make sure it works for everyone.”

“We had some issues with previous management but now we’ve turned that around and it’s been all about the community and about what they want to do rather than what one person wants to do. It’s been really good with good numbers in the lobbies and some good clean racing. Everything we do now, it’s about the community and making sure we’re delivering for them. The feedback for 2012 so far and the plans for Forza 4 has all been very positive.”

Tell me about what you’re doing in terms of promotion.

“We went down to Britcar at Silverstone because there’s a team sponsored by Forza and I wasn’t sure what to expect but I ended up talking to the team manager for about an hour, it was brilliant. I think the whole weekend was really good for us and that’s what we really want to do, we want to get the word out that we’re here and show people what we’re doing. And the key selling point for us is the recognition by the MSA!”

I wanted to ask about that, how does an online gaming club get recognised officially by the British Motorsport Association. Tell me about that.

“That’s one of the things we struggle with. The games companies’ reaction is sort of ‘yeah… so what, we don’t really care’ but when we speak to the guys who race for real, the drivers, team guys, mechanics and that kind of stuff and say we’re recognised they’re like ‘Really? That’s very cool!’. And it is , we’ve got the same standing as the BTCC and those kind of clubs, we actually have a say in how motorsport is run!”

“The way it came about was about getting some difference in recognition as a club, beyond all of the other online clubs. It took a lot of work putting the rules together, but we have the right set of rules and we have the same or even better stewarding than real racing because we have the ability to view the action directly and from any angle using replays. We applied and we got it.”

“The recognition is fine but we’re planning to really push that side of things because we know how important sim-racing is to real-racing and this is a really good and cheap way to get into the sport for real. We’re looking at pushing TORA TV and having some commentary too, to really show the value which we can bring.”

“It’s about accessibility too, an Xbox 360, the game and a Live subscription is not too expensive, even when you look at something like R-Factor which needs a good PC gaming rig and that’s not cheap.”

A learning curve.

So how do you handle the guys who are still learning?

“We do have some guys who want to jump straight into an LMP1 car because they’re fast and we’re working on having a ramp-up so that people can learn what it actually means to race these cars properly. We’re probably going to use the LMP-C class for that at that level, GTs are not so much of an issue. We’re also thinking about having community nights where we race something like Minis, that’s real clubman class but it’s still huge fun too and it helps people learn because they don’t feel they have to have the fastest car, they just need to learn to drive better.”

“It’s about making it easy for people to come along and enjoy our racing.”

Controller or wheel?

“It’s strange, some games are OK with a stick, but some are just rubbish – F1 2010 was great with a wheel, but it was impossible with a stick. I suppose it’s what you’re used to, we have some who are stick runners and some who are wheel only but that’s another reason why Forza works well for us, it’s actually good for both kinds of controller”

I wanted to ask about that too. Last year you ran over a few different games, is the choice to go with Forza based on an evolution or specifications or what?

“The main reason is the personalisation. We can control the games down to a very fine degree and the simulations are awesome or you can turn the whole thing on its head and play cat-and-mouse in arcade mode.”

“The key aspects on the choice of game are really accessibility, then physics and then the aesthetics. It’d be nice to have some more granularity in control like traction control and to have things like night racing, but that’s really a next generation thing I think.”

You’ve got 6 championships for 2012 – does that cover all of the ground you’d like?

“Pretty much, but the problem we have is that there are only a certain number of nights in the week so we’re limited to what we can actually run.”

“We’d rather keep it fun than it turning into a chore – for the racers as well as us – and get the official series right for everyone instead of trying to cover too much ground and risking making mistakes.”

“We’ve also done full 24hr races for charity in the past as teams, running stints etc, doing the full thing and we had other clubs putting teams together and wanting to be a part. So for this year we’re planning on doing a championship of 6 x 24hr races to expand that kind of thing”

What about off-road or two wheels?

“Well one of the guys tried to get a DiRT 3 championship running but no-one was really that interested”

“Matt plays SBK a lot and enjoys it but I don’t think anyone’s ever really thought about putting a championship together. We’ve grown up around Forza and the community loves Forza so that’s really where the racing focus is.”

“That’s not to say we’d never do it, but there’s no real drive right now.”

So looking ahead, years into the future, where would you want TORA to be?

“Ideally, we’d like to be in a place where we’re recognised in the industry as a genuine channel through which young drivers can progress, learning race-craft and developing ability without incurring the huge expense and investment which is required today. But also as a place where it’s cool to have fun, to race at Clubman level and enjoy the experience with others who feel the same way.”

“I’d like for us to be the place where all of the online series are run through, the hub if you like for all clubs to come to. I guess that’s what we can bring through the MSA membership, the technical regs, the rules, car specs, that kind of thing. We are good at making series which are fair, it’d be great if we could be at the center of on-line racing.”

“We’re talking to a couple of other clubs at the moment who run different series and we’re going to pursue partnerships like that so we can grow through affiliation as well as through direct growth.”

“We’d love to have a TORA team racing in a real-world series, TORA drivers who’ve come through with us in a TORA team in the real world.”

“But really keeping the community happy is the key, they are our future. It’s all about the community and expanding what we can deliver to them.”

“In the ideal world, we’d like to be able to provide services for everyone, from the kid playing Mario Kart, through to the hardcore racers running R-Factor on big-rig PCs”

What’s the message about TORA that you want send over?

“We’re a clean, professional, fun environment. With something for everyone and we’re recognised by the MSA for doing things properly.”

I write to express both my delight and my concern at the range of titles we have coming up over the next few months.

I realise that we’re coming up to the ‘holiday’ season – that’s Christmas for the rest of us – and that this is a significant time of year for you in terms of marketing, sales and units shipped but do we really have to be faced with such a glut in such a short space of time?

Yes, I know that I’m being a bit previous with my concerns here, but the previews, the trailers and teaser videos the special editions we’re promised for pre-orders, all of these things conspire to build up a head of steam with can, on occasion, lead to disappointment.

I hope that the games on my wish list don’t lead to that let down and I don’t think that they will, but here they are just in case you feel the need to give them a final tweak:-

1. Mass Effect 3. Yes, I know that you pushed this one back a little bit and for that I’m grateful. I’m happy that the quality of the end result and the satisfaction of us, your customers, is being put before the numbers game of Christmas.
2. Need for Speed: The Run. The NFS titles carry with them a mixed pedigree and along with that a certain amount of risk on behalf of the game buyer… of me! From what I’ve seen of The Run so far it looks like it could be fantastic – I’m prepared to forgive the QTAs I think! – I’m even tempted to do a pre-order which is something which I don’t usually do.
3. Assassins Creed: Revelations. The third part of the second part of the Assassin’s Creed trilogy. Or something like that. I like Ezio, perhaps more than I did Altair or maybe it’s just that I’ve had more of a chance to get to know and to be Ezio I’m not sure. Revelations and the evolution of that world is something which fills me with massive anticipation and, once again I’m tempted by the special ‘Animus’ edition of the game for all of the extra bits therein.
4. Forza 4. Well, what can be said which hasn’t already? You can hold up your GTAs, your Gran Tourismos and, yes, even your Need For Speeds but when it comes to racing games which are about racing, Forza takes the cake. I have them all to date and ‘4 with all its promise will make its way into my hands with a speed matching its gameplay, of that I have no doubt.

There are others of course, every time I take a look at the ‘coming soon’ pages I see something which I mentally add to my ”yep, I need to get my hands on that’ list. And of those I’m sure that there will be some which don’t make it and that I’ll pick up in 6, 9, 12 months time and play through in the same way I have with titles like Vanquish, Front Mission and others: a little late to the game but with a few pounds off and with just as much fun. I’m also sure that I will get some of them only to get a few hours in and know, just KNOW in the pit of my guts that there’s something wrong, something missing, something that’s just not quite right and I’ll feel sad.

So in conclusion let me make this simple request: don’t rush to hit a date, only to miss the mark with your games. Don’t worry about the short term numbers when you could have a longer-tail of happy buyers. In short, make these games good!

Yours, in anticipation

John Brown – a gamer and a fan.

Just get these ones right!

OK, let’s start with the bad things. I didn’t like the environment when not racing. The colour palette of white, green and black isn’t appealing to me and the vast areas of blank white backgrounds – sometimes the whole screen barring a ‘loading’ or ’saving’ icon – was stark and frankly less than inviting.

Next, the general feel of the user interface was just clunky and a little old fashioned. I remember when, instead of an hour-glass, I first saw the please-wait-while-we-do-stuff symbol being replaced by a spinning tyre, it was a LONG time ago and I think we’ve moved on from that really. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was consistency but there’s also another, different ‘loading’ icon which appears every now and again and it feels like they just forgot about that one.

The introductory chapters of career mode take you through the UI step by step as you learn about hiring and firing staff, doing research into enhancements for your cars, negotiating deals with sponsors and buying designs, paint colours (yes, I know…) and new cars too. This is all okay if a little contrived and I could have done with a few less levels in the menu structures but after a while you get used to that side of things.

The final whinge I’m going to have about the UI is about pressing buttons. This might seem like a minor thing but on a regular basis I’ll press X to select the day for the event I’m going to race in and, although there’s a little noise to show the system knows I’ve pressed the button, the game itself just ignores me and the most irritating thing is the unnecessary ‘continue’ button press after a new race is loaded. It’s simple enough isn’t it? I press a button to go racing, you load the race and things get started, why do you have to wait there looking stupid for me to press a button – the ONLY choice here – in order to continue down the decision path I’ve chosen? Unnecessary, annoying and frustrating.

BUT! And this is a big but, the game itself once you’re in the car is actually really fun. You start, as always, in the lower classes and move through the ranks based on the time you spend and how good you are. Eventually your reputation and respect earn you the attention of WRC teams and you get to sign up and race with the big boys. The usual fair for this type of game but I had such fun doing it!

The graphics are not photo realistic but I didn’t care once I was in the car, the controls were responsive, the feedback was good through my Logitech Force GT, there weren’t any “WTF!” moments other than of my own making and it was just plain old fun! I bought a copy of Sega Rally for the Xbox 360 a while ago with my head full of fond memories of hours spent in arcades and was disappointed in the result. WRC 2 is, for me, the successor to the Sega Rally of those past days. It doesn’t have the sim-accuracy of DiRT 3, it certainly doesn’t have the beauty of Forza 4 but what it does have is playability which is something we shouldn’t forget about!

You get a good mix of events too. I particularly like the head-2-head short course races which usually take place in an arena or car-park somewhere and demand pin-point accuracy in your driving, but the long sweeping trails, the tight turns of Argentina and Portugal, the forests of Germany all are fun and challenging and if you mess up, you can always press the magic go-back-in-time button and adjust your line a little. I started playing WRC 2 with the intention to not use that feature, I work on the principal that if you screw up, you live with the results. But it’s the nature of WRC 2 and its fun side which made me think that, actually realism isn’t important here… enjoyment is.

So I crank through the turns, listening intently to my co-driver, trying to keep the car shiny and wrenching the wheel backwards and forwards with vim and alacrity. Sometimes it’s just about enjoying the moment and letting all of the incidentals drift away… that button thing IS annoying though!

Forza 4 comes with a Content Installation disc which you have the option to install on your Xbox’s hard drive to speed up the loading of those delicious images of fast cars and undulating racetracks. It didn’t take long and was well worth doing. After the additional content was installed, Forza 4 asked me if I wanted to look for saved games; I said “Well of course!” and then more special things happened: I got a whole bunch of cars across all of the classes for free, including one of the ‘Unicorn’ cars in the game. Nice!

I could now go on to tell you that the menu system is smooth and slick, easy to navigate and pretty intuitive. I could tell you that the Auto Vista is simply a beautiful way to ‘walk around’ and explore some of the most stunning cars on (and off!) the planet. I could tell you that, as a result of installing the content, scanning through the car lists either in your garage or in the shop is a great experience with very fast load times for the cars themselves. I could go through all of those things in great and fanatical detail, but I’m won’t. You’ll probably already have seen them, or read about them. The important thing about a driving game is the driving, and this is where Forza Motorsport 4 truly shines.

I do want to take a quick diversion though, if I may. Kinect. I bought a Kinect (albeit a “preowned” one) specifically for Forza and for Mass Effect 3. I don’t have the space in my office to actually jump around and use my body as the controller, as extolled by the good folks at Microsoft, but I did want to try two things in Forza 4: head tracking and speech control.

Head tracking allows you to look left and right simply by moving your head slightly left and right and this works pretty well, as long as you have the setup for your hardware right. I don’t. My Kinect is looking at me from a little too low down and I’m partially obscured by my steering wheel so the results were a little jumpy and inconsistent. If I use the standard controller they’re much better, but then I crash lots! The voice control, however, works perfectly. “Xbox” I say, “Upgrade car” and there I am, in the car upgrade screen ready to add mucho bhp to my ride of choice! Then off to the races.

Forza was always a good game to race in, the series progression made sense and there was a good set of parameters to work with to tweak difficulty. Forza 4 is no exception. The choice of events as you tour around the world is predicated by your currently selected vehicle and you can change those choices simply by selecting a car from a different class. There are standard races, mixed class races, head to head races, lots of races! Lots of variation and interesting behaviors from the AI competitors too.

Some of your on-screen rivals are courteous and professional, put a good pass on them and they’ll give ground tucking in behind you to try and return the favour next time around. But there are also the ‘aggressive’ drivers who will not think twice about slamming into you simply because you had the audacity to be on the bit of tarmac they wanted! Having this differential in the opponents adds much more depth to each race as you get to know them and their individual foibles.

On track, the cars are fantastically put together and the controls are direct and responsive. I’m using an original Microsoft Force Feedback wheel which has been kicked around under my desk and dragged out to play almost every racing game I own over the years… fair to say it’s had a bit of stick! The feedback I got through the wheel was superb. If I pushed the front end a little, the wheel softened and the ‘feel’ of the road was lost. If I clipped a curb, even ever so slightly, a little ‘tick’ was felt and I knew I’d aced the line. Exquisite!

But there’s more off the track too. If you’re an online racing fan, the lobbies now support 16 players per race, up from eight in the last version. The community section of the game has been extended and now includes the ability to create a Club within which members can share cars, tuning, decals, etc. through a common garage. In fact there’s so much focus on the community side of things that you’re encouraged to join in through a daily credit bonus gifted to you for simply entering the Community section of the game. By the way, you will earn LOTS of credits in ‘4′ if you work out the Affinity system!

Also part of the community feel is the ability to personalise your in-game profile through the application of a Title and Badge. These are earned as you progress through the game through good driving, progression and consistency. Or you can simply choose your favourite manufacturer and display their colours with pride.

Gamerdork’s Frazer talks on a subject close to me.. the story in games.

One Bullet Left: How Video Games Can Get ‘Story’ Right – Part one
“Storytelling in videogames is in its infancy. That’s what people say, anyway – mostly the people who are responsible for storytelling in videogames. After almost forty years, some might think the medium is developing a little slowly. Perhaps it ought to receive one-to-one tuition or be moved to some kind of special school. Unfortunately, this overused mantra is nothing more than an excuse. Videogame storytelling is not in its infancy; it’s just being done badly.”

Delb2K, also at Gamerdork, discovers that simple games are sometimes the most playable in this review.

Fruit Ninja Kinect
“From the outside Fruit Ninja Kinect should represent the worst of current gaming trends. A motion-control only game with a basic premise and few gameplay modes that has a bare bones single player structure, which on first glance appears to be repetitive and unimaginative…. But wait, the incredulous actuality of it all is that far from being the runt of this year’s summer of arcade it is the one game that manages to stay faithful to the very ideals of arcade design; the joy of chasing high scores.”

See fruit, hit fruit!

Jamie over at Console Arcade brings one of my favourite video clips of the month

Final Crimson Alliance character trailer features Moonshade the Assassin
“The video shows that not only is the Assassin class the fastest of the lot, but it’s also a she, ticking the female box on the equalities checklist. Although I doubt the Women’s Lib has `arse kicking assassin` in mind when they campaigned for equal rights.”

Jamie also brought us a review of the fantastically titled “Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet”

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet Review
“If there was ever a game title which truly lived up to its name, then it’s Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (ITSP). The sense of clamoring through a truly alien world and uncovering its dark, twisted secrets is an adventure to be savored and something which arguably hasn’t been achieved in this two dimensional way since the original Metroid titles.” Nice!

Ross over at ThumbCulture brought us his heartrending tale of fall and redemption

Achievement Unlocked: Forgot What Outside Is
“Now into the setup, happy times. Date, Time, Location. Great. Xbox Live? Connected. Fantastic. Sign up for Xbox Live or Recover Gamertag? Recover Gamertag, please. Email address…no problem. Bring it all back!!
Password. Oh, frag.”

Ross, again and this time an article which immediately made me say ‘Yes.. I do that know someone who does that!’

The Ten Worst Backseat Gamer Traits In The World. Ever.
“You’re a gamer. It’s the ultimate social experience between you and your friends. You arrange a get-together to duke it out on your favourite multiplayer game to see if anyone in your crew has got any better or any worse. You look forward to these events, and then your friend invites their friend, who knows nothing of your favourite pastime. Here we go again.”

Mean anything to you? No, me neither. How about ’smouse’? Yep, I got lost there too. The reason I’m throwing these random words at you is that they were thrown at me as WINNING words by my opponents in the iOS game Quarrel. I mean really… smouse!

Let’s go back a while, though, what is Quarrel? Quarrel is a strategic word game where you take on up to three AI players with various ‘word IQ’ levels in a bid to capture land for your chosen tribe. The game follows the Risk model of combat with troop number representing an advantage but not necessarily guaranteeing a victory. The wordy bit comes in when combat commences.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you have six troops in your zone and your enemy has five and you choose to attack. Eight letters appear from which you much make the highest scoring word you can. Letters have values assigned to them and, if your word is a good’un, your score should be higher than your opponent’s. If you win, you blitz your opponent’s troops off the map and take over their zone. If you lose, your troops are reduced to one and you’re immediately on the back foot. You may not even use all of your troops—they get to hold a letter each—so any advantage is lost immediately. If you both come up with the same word, the time taken to choose your word is taken into account and whoever was quickest wins. (Typically that means the machine, in my experience.)

So in terms of gameplay, it’s a pretty straightforward affair. If you fancy a quick, easy game pick Dwayne as your opponent in a one-on-one match. With his Word IQ of 100, Dwayne is the… well… simplest challenge. If you really want to understand what pain is about then choose to duel Kali with her Word IQ of 195 and select a timed match!

There’s fun to be had in here; quite a lot actually, and I’m surprised that I keep switching the iPad back on (this is an iPhone / iPod touch / iPad title) and having another quick go. There are achievements to gather and, if youre that way inclined, you can share your victories with the world via the integrated Twitter and Facebook links. But there will come a point where you say “What the FUUUU?!”and that usually arrives when you’re beaten with a word like “smouse”.

Now then, “tufas” I can just about live with; tufa is a type of rock, so tufas are many pieces of this type of rock, but ’smouse’ really took the crunchy dunkable! I’ve still not been able to find a proper definition for this word! I switched off at that point and my friends Dan (not our, Ready Up Dan, another one) and Sarah both said on separate occasions “Is that really a word?”. Quarrel boasts a dictionary of 10,000 words and I’m sure that a lot of research went into selecting them, but I’ve a feeling that the odd questionable one made if through the QA process and frankly it’s those moments which took the edge off the game for me.

The other thing which I think is lacking is a simple pass-the-iPad multiplayer game. Yes, I know that this wouldn’t work with the timed answers to break a tie mechanic in the game, but in multiplayer this could simply be a drawn hand and replayed.

Oh, wait. No it’s not actually a surprise is it? Why is it that it seems any significant product launch is now subject to some kind of delay? The 3DS launch was delayed until after the Christmas holidays. Games are delayed, put back and re-scheduled almost on a daily basis now. Are these people really so bad at planning??

Of course they’re aren’t. After all the Vita is still being launched in Japan at the end of 2011, it’s only the EU and N-American markets which are being hit by the delay. The reasons could be manifold but the stated excuses are that Sony want to have a good selection of titles ready at launch in the western markets and this is driving an early-2012 rather than late-2011 product launch.

My opinion? Sony were hoping that the 3DS would have prepared a fertile mobile gaming environment into which they could scatter the Vita seedlings with a good return. The reality of poor 3DS sales and the resulting price cuts slashes have put a crimp into Sony’s plans. A Christmas launch of the Vita at the full prices against the expected 3DS cut-price bundles would be an invitation to perceived failure, even if the numbers are good. If they’re short of Nintendo’s, the Vita will be the loser and I don’t think that losing in any measure is something Sony can afford at the moment.

Vita for Christmas? Not this year.

It’s such a shame that the former King of the game-space has fallen so far and so quickly. PSN cancellations, PS3 trade-ins, SOE studio closures and continuing questions over the security of their online platforms continue to dog Sony and they really need to get the Vita launch right to start restoring some investor and consumer confidence. It’s just a shame that in trying to do the right thing they’ve chosen to annoy the gamers who are expecting a Vita-shaped package under the tree at Christmas.

Is this the last delay we’ll see this year? No, of course it won’t be. The industry seems to be struggling to fit its title and platform development into the schedules which are dictated by the consumer spend periods. Christmas (or “the holiday period”) is obviously the major one of these and this is more and more important as gaming becomes more and more mainstream and, as a result, more and more money is being spent on production. But some houses manage to get it right, they set our expectations early in the game and although we may grumble at the time, we look forward to the release in the reasonable expectation that the sums have been done properly—Mass Effect 3 springs to mind for me on this one.

Making a big splash at the trade shows and promising a delivery date, only to renege on that promise a matter of weeks later doesn’t just seem like bad planning, it almost smacks of mismanagement. So here’s my request:

“To Sony, Microsoft, EA, THQ, Ubisoft, Capcom, Nintendo and all of the other major names upon whom we rely for our gaming fun times. Try a little honesty with us, the folks who save our pennies to buy your products. We’ll actually like you a lot more for it in the long run. If you deceive us we tend to get very bitter, very quickly.”

I watched a movie! I simply didn’t want to play a game. This has never happened to me before and I was a little surprised at myself! In retrospect I should have clamped the steering wheel to the desk and tried to get to grips with DiRT 3 as the movie I watched – Skyline – was ultimately a sorrowful pile of poop, but hey, you live and learn!

I’ve thought about my sudden and unforeseen disinterest (it’s now passed, you’ll be pleased to learn) and could only put it down to one thing; I’ve overloaded on games!

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been literally — well actually, metaphorically — neck deep in games. I’ve been researching, validating checking, loading and unloading. I’ve purchased, played and pondered, all for a piece of work which will see the light of day later in the year (I believe) and the bottom line is that I started to resent it. Throughout the process I was also committed to completing inFAMOUS 2 with the kind of focus only someone with a mild obsessive disorder can demonstrate and at the end of it all I was, frankly, all used up and wanted to do something else.

I was asked recently on VYou “What’s your fantasy escapist job?” and the response I gave there is about how I felt about the games at that point. My ‘fun and relaxing pastime’ had become a chore and I was feeling a little resentful of that. It’s a strange feeling when you look at something which usually brings you pleasure and you feel something which is, if not diametrically opposed, at least at odds to that usual sensation. I’ve sometimes become jaded with a particular game but usually that’s because some element of the game itself is irritating to me, or there’s a flaw in the story, or the execution, or the controls. Sometimes I even feel that I’m done with a particular genre because I’ve done a little too much — especially over the holiday period. But never with the whole activity, never with ANY activity. It was weird.

I’ve taken some ‘time off’ this week. This typically translates into me doing a bit less work and catching up on the other stuff I’ve been putting off or haven’t had time to do otherwise. During that time I’ve dived into MX vs ATV: Alive and I’m enjoying it immensely — there are a few quirks but I think I’ll bring those in the form of a review perhaps – I’ve also re-engaged, however briefly, with WoW after my self-imposed exile. I’m off to a wedding at the end of the week so with a couple of days of travel, the event and the associated socialising I’ll be away from gaming too. And this is a good thing I feel. I know that when I get back, I’ll be ready to get stuck into the action again and will have fully recovered from my unexpected attack of gaming ‘meh’.

I never thought it’d happen, but perhaps it IS possible to have too much of a good thing!

As inFAMOUS 2’s protagonist, Cole, you’re charged (pun definitely intended here) with ridding the world of an entity called “The Beast”. Doing this means training yourself up and collecting enough power and control to activate a device which will drain The Beast’s powers. The objects through which you gain this power are called Blast Cores and you need to find six in total. You’ve got some help along the way in the shape of your trusty side-kick Zeke and your agency handler Kuo who herself… actually, no, you can find that little nugget out yourself when you play through!

Maybe I don’t have the Lore in place because I didn’t play the first inFAMOUS but I didn’t really understand the monster side of things at all, sure there needs to be something with a little more gravitas than a bunch of hicks toting machine guns and bazookas but I did feel a little nonplussed when the ground started to shake and up popped a Hive-Master.

There is an element in inFAMOUS 2 which I’ve not seen, or at least don’t recall seeing, in any other game of this type, though, and that’s the user generated content appearing in the campaign mode of the game. Side missions appear on the map as yellow exclamation points, user generated missions appear as green exclamation points. How these missions are chosen and incorporated into the game I’m not sure but they are a nice addition and provide a little variety to the game-space.

Some tips now:

1. Stay clear of water. As an electrically charged person water does not work for you, fall in and you’ll pretty much fry yourself.
2. Collect as many Blast Shards as you possibly can. These increase your charge storage and let you fight for longer.
3. Try out all of the different attack types you learn. I’m of the mind that the newest isn’t necessarily the best for all occasions.
4. Use the tramlines to zip around. If for no other reason other than it’s really cool!

inFAMOUS 2 is built on the Unreal engine as it seems is every other game at the moment and it’s not the best use of the engine I’ve seen or used (Corrected, as pointed out the games does not use the Unreal engine) The game engine is not the best I’ve some across,  but it’s taken me longer than the Ready Up editors would have liked to get this review done… I can’t stop playing it! It might be the completionist in me, it might be that I really want to get Cole up to the top of that magic Blue Bar as a total hero (This is one of those where you can choose the ‘good’ of ‘evil’ paths and score accordingly). I want to do all of the side missions, I want to heal the poor people lying at the side of the road, I want to… well I think you get the drift here.

The building traversal isn’t as polished as Assassins Creed: Brotherhood and the overall controls felt a little clumsy but once I’d shifted down a gear and adopted the jump-then-move style it seemed to want it worked pretty well.

“Xbox or Playstation?”

“Umm, ’scuse me?” my, usually excellent, grip upon the spoken word momentarily eluding me.

“Which do you have, Xbox or Playstation?”

“Well, er both, but I spend most time on the Xbox”

“Okay, this will be yours for the afternoon then.” With that he lead me over to ‘my’ booth. “Have fun and give me a shout if you need anything, there are beers on the bar!”

And there I was, with a dedicated machine at my disposal and Shadows of the Damned loaded up and ready to play. And beer!

Of course with this being hot to market I’m not going to give anything away here, no ‘Thpoilers’ from me! But let me give you my impressions of a game which, per genre, isn’t really my cup of tea.

Firstly, I played Shadows for five hours straight. That gives some indication that the game itself isn’t poop! The underlying Unreal engine is well known and trusted for good reason, it delivers solid environments. Once the ‘tutorial’ scenes are out of the way and you start down the path to… erm the place you’re heading (phew almost slipped there) the controls map well and there’s an intuitive feel to doing what needs to be done.

It’s pretty safe to say that this isn’t a title for the faint hearted. I’m no shrinking violet but I’m also not a horror genre fan and there is a lot of blood, slashing and entrails in Shadows which is fine because that’s the kind of game it is. As I mentioned above, this isn’t my genre of choice but here’s what I found as I played through the first three chapters: I actually started not to notice too much. Red just became the dominant colour of the screen palate and the rest was background.

There is more to the game than just the redness, the shooting and the squishy bits though. Our hero Garcia Hotspur’s girlfriend is rather pleasant to behold — well most of the time but sometimes… ick! You’ll find out. There’s also a decent amount of tongue-in-cheek humour in there too, Johnson (American’s will get that reference more than us Brits) is Garcia’s floating ex-demon skull side-kick and is always ready with a snappy one-liner as well as being able to turn into various weapons, a torch, a motorbike and being our in-game teacher as new elements crop up. But how about checkpoint markers which are one-eyed demons which poop out a glowing marker, or a demonic horse which farts out darkness? Yep that’s all in there too.

So I was in the candle and flat-screen TV lit upstairs of tigertiger for five+ hours playing a game which, by genre definition, isn’t my thing. Why? The answer is probably related somewhat to the pedigree behind this venture. Produced by Suda51 – Grasshopper Studio’s Goichi Suda – working with Shinji Mikami who created Resident Evil and Vanquish, Shadows was always going to have a certain ‘look’, but there’s also an element of “oh go on, just a little bit more then” which is where five hours ends up going.

So my un-spoilery summary is this: Shadows of the Damned is about a demon hunter whose girlfriend is taken by a Demon lord as payback for having killed his demons. Our hero then goes after her and faces ever-increasing hoards of night-crawlers, bone-crunchers and other monsters and nastiness in the process, solving some puzzle elements and drinking a lot — and I mean a lot — of alcohol on the way!

Suda51 has described Shadows as “punk-rock horror from Hell. And also a road trip movie” and I suppose that’s pretty fair. I’d play Shadows through to conclusion I think, especially as there is a cool change of mode which I can’t say anything about part way through the game. It’s not my cup of tea but I know there are folk out there who will love this.

I got involved as part of an experiment we did last year and from that simple start I’ve become deeply involved in the world of Azeroth and its ups and downs. It took a couple of false starts for me, but I got hooked in with an Elven huntress and set about leveling up with maximum possible haste. I reached level 80 with her just as Cataclysm hit and the worlds changed but the problem was, I’d not really completed anything. My goal had just been to level up and the completion of the stories within the world had been secondary, the goals I became aware of had moved outside the practicalities of achievement while still remaining in the ‘mode’ of that character. I’d also started to become aware of just how much time and thought I was putting into playing the game.

I’ve mentioned in posts past my lack of gaming time and the piles of games I’ve got stacked up awaiting completion and the realisation has come that Azeroth was becoming all consuming. During my trips around the world I made sure that my laptop had Warcraft installed so I could maintain my leveling progress. Then the Cataclysm happened and I had just cause to sit back and start to take control.

Yes, I wanted the new content, I wanted to see what happened to Azeroth and to all of the places I had known before. But I wanted to make the most of that rediscovery too. I made the decision that in order to take control I needed to set myself some goals and reach them, then and only then would I be able to say “I’ve done it, I’m content”. Having a mildly obsessive personality is actually pretty good if you can channel it constructively and that’s what I decided to do.

Mirovy - Drenai Paladin

I started a new character (yes, I know but bear with me here), she’s a Drenai Paladin called Mirovy and it’s my goal to hit two major achievements with her. 1) we’re going to explore all of the worlds and get the Explorer title and achievement. 2) we’re going to complete all of the required tasks in each zone to get the Loremaster title and achievement.

The second of these tasks is the major one and, believe me, does take time and effort in each zone to run through the quests required for the building block achievements but it’s in this effort that I’ve been able to start controlling my time and I’m also getting more out of the game itself. The Lore, the stories and the interaction between the factions and characters is played out during these quest strings and there’s so much depth now in the world that there is an additional sense of satisfaction too. My goals are now simple, I’m playing less per week and limiting my sessions to a story, or a zone’s worth of quests. This has given me time to work on finishing Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, Tron Evolution and the other games awaiting me.

Will I give up WoW? No, I won’t. But equally I don’t think I need to, I just need to make the bites smaller and leave room on my gaming plate for other tasty morsels too. Last week I was in South Africa for the week and didn’t play any WoW at all. I would have liked to but there wasn’t the bandwidth either in time or in internet access so I couldn’t. I’m still alive, the world didn’t end and I know that Mirovy will be happy to jump on her Gryphon and head off whenever I need her too. I also know that Ezio is ready with his blades and that my cars are in the Shift 2 garage just ready to roll.

Self discovery seldom delivers what you are expecting. Sometimes, though, this can be a good thing.

My name is John and I love games, all games, again!

It’s weird, and also a little personally disappointing, that I forget and move on so quickly these days. I know (or at least I hope) that it’s not my age, it’s just that ‘new’ comes so quickly and I’m voracious when it comes to consuming racing / driving games. Dropping  a couple of coins into the Grid machine and thrashing the other team members who dared to test me – it’s all true! – brought back just how much I love Grid.

Newer games have brought enhanced physics engines, dust-speck and particle lighting and other such ‘improvements’ but I realise that whenever I’m playing and reviewing these titles I’m actually comparing them to Grid in part. With other genres it’s a little more difficult, for me at least, but I think that there are a few stand-out titles which are benchmark setting, Mass Effect would be one of these and certainly Halo has to be there even though I can’t play it (FPS Sickness Syndrome).

Simply the best driving game ever.

This now has me thinking, is the perfection games developers are striving for actually one of those unmeasurable, intangible things which simply happens when the circumstances are fortuitous? When the moons align and the wind blows from the south is there a magic carried on them which imbues certain titles with that certain something?

The reality is, I think, that sometimes things just work. They click into place in a way that no amount of planning, designing or effects purifying can ever knowingly achieve.

It’s good when that happens!

So this guy just walks up to me and says "You can take the mask off now". I killed him, of course, but even so!

That was the end of my first effort around the tracks of SHIFT 2 Unleashed. But here’s the thing – the game finds out how good you are and then sets itself up to give you the best experience it can. The first session gives you a difficulty level, the second assesses your opponent levels – how good the AI is. So a little initial frustration is the trade-off for longer-term enjoyment. I decided I could live with that. At least I thought I had.

The game first. Unleashed has taken the tracks, cars and structure of SHIFT and given them, well, a bit of a kicking! But this is a good thing, one of the problems I have with a lot of driving / racing games is that they seem a little bit clean and shiny. Unleashed now has ‘added dirt and grit’ and I do like the result. Bits of stuff fly up from the cars in front of you and hit the windscreen, and bugs go splat. It’s all very good!

The game has you starting at level one with a limited starting budget to buy your first Class C car and your goal is, of course, to progress through the levels and classes until you get to GT. Along the way you are coached by Vaughn Gittin Jr. who is, as I’m sure I don’t need to point out but will anyway,  a racer in the Formula D drift series. Gittin had some reasonable input into the drift section of Unleashed and you get the chance to win his car in the game too. As you play through the game you win money, upgrade kits, paint styles, graphics kits and cars as you level up, which itself is achieved by doing well in the events and achieving certain goals – beating a lap time, holding a drift for a number of seconds, that kind of thing – which result in XP being awarded.

Of course driving is one thing, making the cars perform is another and there’s a whole dark art to tweaking the setup and applying the upgrades to get the best out of the cars. Simply buying everything you can and maxing out your ride within the class limits is no guarantee of success, in fact it’s perfectly possible to over-do things and make the car almost undriveable – I know because I did this to a 370Z and ruined a perfectly nice setup.

If you’re graphically oriented then the look of your cars may be the thing you want to spend time on. You can choose colours, paint styles and vinyl graphics and build them up to create a unique and stunning look for your fleet. For me I picked a nice colour and left it at that.

Playing the game ‘for real’ gave me issues though. I’m on the PS3 version and I think it’s pretty widely acknowledged that the Dual-Shock is not the best for driving games as the triggers are the wrong shape, but beyond that I found the control twitchy. Steering had a decidedly on-off feeling to it and small alterations had large results. I was disappointed. In fact I was so disappointed that I bought a Logitech GT Driving Force wheel to see if it really was a controller issue, a game issue or a me issue.

Much better. Much, much better. The control was more precise and the experience much more immersive, at least it was until I hit the first drift events. Then things all changed. The throw on the analogue controls, both wheel and pedals, was simply too large to allow for the response needed to me to make the drift work. I’m not saying that this is a game thing, it may well be a me thing, but when I dropped back on to the Dual-Shock everything came back together. This, for me, is an issue.

Another issue is the races themselves. The duration of the early races I found too short, they left no latitude for recovery if you made a mistake and, in the early stages of your career, this is important. Oh sure, it’s possible to go back and re-race any event, but it’s also really easy to hit [Start] and restart the event. If the race was ten laps instead of two I think I’d have been more inclined to pursue recovery rather than giving up and starting again.

Finally on my list of complaints, and this is actually the most annoying for me, is the user interface. There are a couple of things in the way that the UI works which means that, well it doesn’t work! Firstly, the “Saving data” indicator appears in the top right of the screen. This would be fine, but it’s the only indicator that does. The “Loading” indicator is the bottom right as are the button options and this means that over and over and over again I was looking at the screen not knowing what was going on because the notice that it was saving my game simply wasn’t in my eye-line, this is compounded by my second gripe, the button actions.

When I press a button I expect something immediate to happen showing me that I’ve pressed it, at the very least the buttons should go away but they don’t and this leaves me in the situation where I press X to move on and it seems like nothing happens so I press X again… and again. Whether this is a PS3 specific thing or not, I’m not sure but it gets more and more irritating as time goes on. You might think that this is just a little bit picky but UX (User eXperience) is more and more important in software and systems design and Unleashed has dropped the ball on this occasion.

Aside from these things though, aside from the controller swapping I’ll be doing and the UI niggles which I’ll just have to tolerate, the game itself is a good’un. A bit more gritty, a bit more ‘real’. I like the dizzyness which is invoked when you slam into a barrier, I like the significant damage you can do to a car if you really get things wrong, I like the choice of cars available (there are a significant number of licenses in here!) and I like the greater sense of depth I’m getting from the game.